2:106 is ''the abrogation verse'' that signifies the quran itself as talking about abrogation.

Others here have suggested the abrogation is of the prior scriptures, not the quran itself. I'm not convinced of this explanation because 1) the word for ''verse'' (ar. ayah) is, to my knowledge, never used for the prior scriptures, and 2) while the specification is plausible, the specification isn't explicitly stated by the quran and is an inference.

There are 137 verses commonly understood to be abrogated, but this varies.

First of all, almost all the [abrogated] verses are Meccan to early Medinan, according to traditional chronology. Second, all the abrogating verses tend to promote a narrower, privileged definition of being Muslim at the expense of “others.” Third, without the meditation of the “abrogated verses,” the abrogating verses may be understood to set up antagonistic, binary relationships—primarily between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Asma Afsaruddin sketches such early views about jihad and abrogation, and shows that the most militant views conspicuously came from scholars serving the Umayyad caliphate, which had its own earthly ambitions for imperial conquest. Abu Muslim al-Isfahani is a mu’tazili (and the only) classical scholar to argue against abrogation, instead calling them specifications for different contexts (his work never survived and is known only by those who argued against him).

Much of the liberal spirit of the Meccan Qur’an still remains “abrogated” in mainstream Islamic jurisprudence, thought, and culture.

Taken from Akyol's books.